I swear that I am the biggest Browns fan alive.
Apparently, there was a game the other day where someone wasn’t trying to kick it through the crossbars, but instead was going for degree of difficulty and trying to hit all of the crossbars.
Now they traded #12 to the guy who cut #19 shabbily to let him tie our namesake?
I don’t know for sure because I was off picking up a well planned gift for my mother. Browns fans need a plan.
I know you heard him say “When you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out,” but did you see him wink and say “in?”
We need a plan.
Our plan should be to stop following our dreams for just one act of humanity that will save the world and then hook up with them later.
Stop moaning about Red Right 88 and have some perspective. Red Right 88 happened because the Browns once legendary place kicker was playing his last game and they knew that he was missing kicks that day. No one knows history. The coach of Red Right 88 created the first anonymous substance abuse program ever that kept its players on the field.
It’s been close to 25 years and apparently no one has taught those kids what happened before they were born.
I know. I told Reggie Rucker for two minutes as I dealt him blackjack that I loved watching him play as a kid, and Reggie Rucker said “If you love me so much, why don’t you deal me an (expletive deleted) blackjack?”
I was still a Browns fan, but one who wasn’t surprised when Reggie Rucker was arrested soon after for embezzling from the charity that employed him to pay his gambling debts. There are many ex-Brown heroes working for your charity that takes place on occasional Sundays to keep you discussing whether the new place kicker will have enough time to learn the “system.”
The system is now 1-32-1.
The original system was naming the team after a genius before they played their first game, going 52-4-3, winning four championships and making the NFL beg for mercy.
Then Judas came to town and fired the genius who established the greatest professional football team in history.
You still won another title because you still had another great Brown.
Judas alienated that great Brown. He was so defiant that he retired a real Cleveland Brown in the prime of his career, and it took decades for others to approach his rushing records.
That was strike two. Since then you’ve been strike three.
Your team had nothing left, but Judas, and Judas helped the NFL make tons of money negotiating sweet television packages.
Then they decided your titles were not to be reckoned with because they were now called Super Bowls.
Some guy named Lombardi is considered the greatest coach in history because he won the first two, when our genius won six.
The NFL says our seven titles don’t count.
The original plan was to name the team after a guy who had already won an NCAA title in our state.
The new plan is to hire a guy who went 8-8 for a city that can barely remember being run by a maverick that said “Just win, baby.”
Hue Jackson has set some records though, hasn’t he.
Personally, I don’t care if they lose as long as they are entertaining. You just watched the two most entertaining games in 25 years, and you still aren’t happy?
That’s what happens when you root for a cursed franchise.
Your not just taking it, you are paying for it while you yell out windows.
No one pays attention.
Yes, that’s you screaming. You’ve had plenty of fake “Art.” True artists notice the two guys not paying attention to the scream.
It was no mistake that when that old man yelling out a window reached his brink, he was in a crucifiction stance.
Someone died for you. Someone with a dream.
Someone was born right after the Kennedy assassination.
He had a dream. He had a plan.
His dream was to play for the greatest franchise in professional football. The one he grew up rooting for even after they decided they’d rather watch Art Modell sit wherever he liked while letting Jim Brown stand elsewhere in his prime.
Sadly, the NFL isn’t as fixed as the NBA and there was no way to make a kid from Akron your savior with ping pong balls.
He used his brains.
He had a plan. While everyone else was partying down in Miami, he graduated early so he could fulfill his dream and fight for you.
What happened? As close to the golden age as possible.
I met a guy at a party in Los Angeles wearing a #31 authentic Cleveland Browns game worn jersey, and I said I love Frank Minnifield. He said, “no this is my jersey, I played special teams for half of a season.”
We had that. Do you want it back?
Yes, you stood by and watched as someone wore the same number as the man who co-created the “Dawg Pound” and used it to try to pick up chicks at a party I could get invited to in Los Angeles when they didn’t have a football team, but got to watch two 8-0 teams play on television, while you were forced to watch 0-8 face 1-7 due to black out constrictions formulated by Judas.
How many times do you have to walk into the wall before you go around it?
Do you like loud music? Good, because you need to turn it up loud enough to drown out the nonsense at that corporate entity and remember when Turkey Joe Jones slammed Terry Bradshaw into the turf well after the whistle.
They’re all laughing at you? Do you like it?
Stop fixating over “the drive.” Your Jesus wasn’t on the field at the time. Stop fixating over “the fumble,” what more could he have done?
Don’t forget the importance of being “Earnest,” if you watched the whole game he played his heart out for you that day. Go find it somewhere and watch it instead. That game meant something.
You weren’t going to win rings in any of those seasons. The NFC was a monster back then. I wandered around in a daze for hours after that ball came loose, but I was happy to see John Elway seem clever catching a touchdown pass and then get body slammed for the rest of those Super Bowls. Do you remember that?
Why do you miss Josh Cribbs, when you were raised to miss Marion Motley?
Enough! That guy with a brain was never mobile. He never had anything close to Tom Brady’s form. He used his wits. He kept you in the game for as long as possible. Now you’re in the game for as long as possible just to make it that much more painful for you every week.
Being in pain over losing an AFC Championship Game is nothing to laugh at. Being in pain over losing the first two games of a season that you had no chance to win a Super Bowl in the worst possible way? That’s a joke the whole world is laughing about.
I did not mispeak. In Paul Brown’s town, a tie is a loss.
People used to make fun of Cleveland, but Ian Hunter loved Cleveland so he wrote “Cleveland Rocks.”
Would you rather be a plum to the big apple or would you rather rock? That was when our guys threw our rival leader’s head into the ground well after the whistle and cheered when the ambulance came out for him just long enough to applaud and go back to punching another drunk who was in Cleveland Municipal Stadium with the wrong jersey.
I know. I was there that day. My father made sure that I was there every week and the whole season only cost $49. Your Jesus with a dream had a guy who made sure he knew what a shrine that place was.
Where were you to protect him, when his limited skills “declined,” and his wits could not stop them from pummeling his vaunted brains into submission. He fought for you, while crooks took his money?
You watched, when they cut him in November of 1993 without so much as a thank you ceremony.
You watched, when he used his brains in Miami, to score a touchdown with a fake spike.
You watched, as he went where all smart people go to win rings, the Dallas Cowboys.
Lebron James was not being cocky and rude to you when he wore a Cowboy hat to your games. He was paying respect to your Jesus achieving his dreams without the crooks that denied him the proper farewell.
You watched as they tore that holy battle ground down, and Judas took everything but your unique helmets, the titles they don’t recognize, and the laundry they put your town’s name on to keep you crying loyalty.
Why are you loyal to a team that cut the most loyal athlete in the history of your city? Pete Franklin left your city for money, but at least he was so conflicted, he soon had a heart attack. At least, he helped save your basketball team from the ultimate moron.
Fine. The guy who cut your savior went on to win many rings by cutting Drew Bledsoe for Tom Brady. He did it elsewhere.
Were you there, because no one alive thought Vinny Testaverde was going to be the greatest quarterback in modern day history.
When you have Testaverde and not Brady, you lose for a few weeks to preserve the dignity of the loyal.
Art Modell did win a Super Bowl. Elsewhere.
You don’t want their parade. You don’t want their free beer of their choosing.
You want to buy the beer of your choice and march in a much better parade.
When someone dies for your sins you root for his resurrection and that’s what we are going to do.
Yeah, that’s what you’ve been doing. Standing around while they laugh and count the money as they replace your heroes with clowns with the same number.
Did we have much of a celebration, when Joe Thomas retired? First ballot Hall of Famer, who never complained once blocking his heart out for jokes with no arms.
No you were too busy arguing about which joke with no arm was going to be next.
Time to fast forward the parade.
Paul Brown did not give his name to this franchise to parade with a generic beer over a midseason victory in a season you never once smelled the playoffs.
Paul Brown gave his name to champions.
So here’s what is going to happen. We are going to take the curse off our town’s name forever, by resurrecting it’s champion.
Your jerseys will have Cleveland on them but they will all be #19. We’ll listen to loud music wearing them and not spend a dollar on anything endorsed by the NFL or those frauds. No tickets. no gear, no fantasy. You were meant to be real life champions.
When they aren’t looking, we will laugh about how ugly the losses were rumored to be in that billion dollar clip joint full of less and less fans with brains.
We will be listening to this.
Until it is time once again to listen to this again.
Exorcise that curse. We want #19 retired. We want lots of numbers retired. We want a statue of #19 up in front of a stadium without a logo, but a name that reflects the city that paid for it.
We want the mural to always stand for loyalty. It should have always just have been a picture of one guy, proud to go into battle with an orange helmet, his wits, his number and his hometown on his jersey.
Then we want a new “Art,” one like the rival’s we hate had. One who knew about family and loyalty.
If you must root, root for them. When Judas took your team, they rooted that a real rival would come back to face them instead of losers that wasted their time on those precious Sundays.
We’ll be sharing bootleg footage of Greg Pruitt’s tear away jerseys, Jerry Sherk wrestling people to the ground, Brian Brennan catching balls with his heart not as a carnival trick.
We’ll pay them to party with us not stand there and cry as they watch themselves lead you to the “Slaughter.”
We’ll get stoned with Josh Gordon and talk about the days when producing meant something. Not silly rules to minimize fun.
When our demands are met?
We will hook up with them later and own the NFL.
Because that was what Paul Brown set out to do the first day of the AAFC. He got fired. It’s redemption time.
We don’t care what creative way they find to lose their 10th straight. We want Bernie Kosar finally shown some respect for symbolically dying for us.
Bernie’s much more gracious than that. He went to Bill somewhere else and made his peace. He went to Art somewhere else and made his peace.
I do not want to show improvement. I want to win.
If it doesn’t work, we’ll find the next Paul Brown in our state and form a new AAFC.
We have turned the cheek enough. It’s time to put our brains on the line for him. #retire19. We laugh at it until we storm back.
